On the Edge of Dawn
by ComatosRoses
Summary: A series of drabbles, some canon, some non. The headless rider and the man that loves her. Shinra/Celty.
1. Denial

**Denial**

-

_No._

Ikebukuro sped past the motorcycle, all flashing lights and surprised faces. The black bike roared beneath Celty, echoing through the city streets.

_No no no no. _

She trusted Shinra. She _trusted_ him, more than anyone else in the world, maybe even loved –

_No._

Celty's hands clenched the grip. Something ached deep inside her, like a tear through her chest. Twenty years she had been searching, always searching, and he had been there. How long had he known? How long had he kept this from her?

_I thought you loved me._

_-_

He reads the fortune, and his heart breaks a little. But Celty is overjoyed with hers, so he palms it and quickly eats the paper.

"Ah, I guess they forgot to put one in mine," he says, and gives her an earnest smile. He's good, twenty years of practice covers over any heartache in his expression.

_Your love shalt not come true._

_-_

Shinra has seen more dead bodies than most 24-year olds, even among his more legitimate peers in the medical field.

He isn't much of a mortician, but sometimes he's called in to alter a corpse's features. Those are the worst jobs, dead flesh is so much harder to work on than living, and… And there's the whole corpse deal of it. He may not be a squeamish man but he is still uncomfortable around the recently dead.

He tries to think about Celty while he's got a surgical knife to a gang member's face. The boy is young, was young, couldn't be older than Shinra himself, and he can't help but wonder if this boy had someone he loved too. He shudders and tries to remember the good times, but there's been so few of them. Shinra has had to live with fantasies. Instead he tries to think about a future with the woman he loves.

There's not much there, either.

He has no past, he realizes, in this dimly lit room, underground in some back ally, carving up a dead man, surrounded by dangerous and ultimately unpredictable human beings.

At the rate he's going he has no future either.

But when he's done he can go home, and he can see Celty. There's a promise of something other than this, and he'll cling to that for all of eternity.


	2. The Edge

Only one this time, but it's a little longer so I guess it balances out? Next chapter will be a continuation of this. Probably. Possibly.

* * *

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_Start_

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Shinra's whole body trembled in time to his quick and ragged breath. He pulled his hand away from his stomach where it had been resting, bringing it up to his face.

"F-fuck…" Shinra gasped in pain.

He looked down at the bloodied mess of his lab coat. The once white coat had turned a deep red, and he winced at the sight of his lower torso, torn fabric indicating where a bullet had met its mark.

He scrunched his eyes shut and tried to think of what to do. His body was going into shock, but there was a slim chance that the shot hadn't hit anything vital.

He probed his abdomen carefully, sluggishness seeping through his arms. The bullet had hit a little more to the side, at an angle, but he'd probably bleed out before he could do anything.

Careless. He'd been careless. He took this job because he needed to keep a reputation with this specific gang, but the location wasn't secure. There had been a raid by a rival group only moments before, and now he was on the ground, dying in a room filled with the already dead.

Shinra laughed, a tiny, weak noise. His acting skills saved him from being shot again like the others, but he had to play dead for too long. His vision was starting to blur. For a moment he forgot that he was wearing his glasses and pawed at his face, clenching the spectacles and then throwing them away.

His mind was slowing down, making every second stretch out, but he managed to get a hold on the makeshift operating table and pulled himself up. The man he was working on was still there, but riddled with a few more bullet holes than he came in with.

Shinra pressed a hand firmly into his side, the sharp pain keeping him awake and slowing the blood flow. He managed to take out his cell phone out before slumping back down to the ground. His finger hovered above the call button, and he cursed himself for doing this, but he wasn't about to die here.

He hit the speed dial. Shinra could feel himself fading, not dying as such, but passing out. He smiled grimly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. _I never wanted you to know this side of me_. The phone was ringing on the other end, but he didn't bother to bring it up to his ear, instead letting the device fall to the floor. The recipient wouldn't be able to answer him, anyway. "Celty," his voice broke, and he slipped into darkness.


End file.
